The Long Catnap Goodbye
by FanWriterWV
Summary: Garfield oversleeps, and finds himself in a future that turns out to be his worst nightmare!


_**THE LONG CATNAP GOODBYE**_

It had been another hard day of work for Garfield (well, what Garfield considered work, anyway-namely, harassing Odie and begging Jon for food) so it wasn't too surprising that he decided to take his nap even earlier than usual. Before he did so, however, he decided to watch a little T.V. Animal Planet was his favorite channel, and with Spring in the air they were doing a show about hibernation.

"Hey, that sounds interesting," Garfield thought. "Maybe I ought to give it a shot. I could just kick back, stretch out for a few days or so, and have a heaping plate of lasagna waiting for me when I woke up."

It seemed to make sense. After all, bears and other wild animals did it; why shouldn't cats? So Garfield took some notes until the program was over, double-checked them, put a "Doo Not Disturb" sign on his bed, and settled down for a nap…

Unbeknown to him, the Sun began rising and setting in the sky, somewhat slowly at first, then faster and faster. His bed, hidden in a closet, went unnoticed and eventually unmissed. As time passed, the closet and the house itself disappeared, to be replaced by the forests that had once covered Garfield's neighborhood before people showed up.

Garfield didn't notice any of this, of course. In his quest to "Study" hibernation, he hadn't taken into account that his body wasn't designed around the changing of the seasons. He had, in effect, put himself in a state of suspended animation, one that lasted far longer than his usual naps…

_**Several Centuries Later**_

The sunlight was hitting Garfield's face as he yawned and finally woke up. As he rubbed his eyes and stretched, he began to notice that something was amiss. He didn't hear or smell Odie nearby, for one thing, and for another he didn't smell food cooking. And, there was a pile of leaves and twigs covering his bed-and him.

"Okay, who's the wise guy who put me outside while I was sleeping?" Garfield grumbled. But when he opened his eyes and saw nothing but trees, he knew something else had happened.

"Whoa! What gives? What happened to my house?" Garfield wandered through the trees, trying to find something that looked familiar. "Jon? Odie? Anybody???" But there was no answer. And, he was getting hungry-and there didn't seem to be a supermarket or even a mini-mart anywhere nearby.

"OK, Garfield, get a grip…so it looks like I overslept. But for how long? How do I get back to my own time, if I can? And, more importantly, do they still make lasagna?"

Garfield spent his first night in the futuristic forest in a makeshift shelter. He'd found some fish in a nearby stream, and they tasted okay. I guess I'm better at this survival stuff than I thought, he said to himself.

The following morning, Garfield yawned. "Man, what a weird dream," he thought. But when he opened his eyes he was in for another shock-for not only was he still in the forest, but now there was an army of dogs hovering over him. They all had clubs-and they all looked like Odie.

"Oh, great-the world's been taken over by Odie clones!" Nevertheless, Garfield tried to reason with them. "Hey, you guys wouldn't happen to have any lasagna, would you?"

For an answer they swarmed in on Garfield, bound and gagged him, and began carrying him on a pole, strung up like the proverbial piñata.

"I guess that means no," Garfield mumbled through his gag.

He saw that they were taking him to a community of buildings shaped like fire hydrants, but they were made of wood. Some of the Odie "Clones" pointed and laughed as he was carried past. Garfield managed to work his gag loose and replied, "Take your stinking paws off me, you dirty mutts!" before he was unceremoniously dumped into one of the smaller "Hydrants," which seemed to be some sort of a jail.

"Well, this is just humiliating," Garfield said. "Now what are they gonna do-dissect me?"

"You'll wish you were dissected by the time they get through with you," a voice from the cell next to his said. Garfield peered at the shadowy figure. It looked and sounded very familiar…"

"Nermel?!?" Garfield exclaimed. "What the heck are you doing here?"

The smaller cat seemed puzzled. "Who is Nermel? I was captured during one of their hunts in the Great Forest." The cat looked quizzically at Garfield. "You are an odd-looking feline," he said. "I do not believe I have ever seen your species before."

"You should talk, fur ball," Garfield replied. "But you're right about one thing-I'm not from around here. But I don't intend on staying long."

"If you have plans of escape, that part should actually be fairly easy," the other cat replied. "For all their brutality, the dogs aren't necessarily all that bright. When night falls, we may be able to free ourselves and sneak past them while they sleep." The cat looked at Garfield again. "It's strange, but you do look…familiar. Curious…in our legends, there is a story of a cat from the distant past who will lead our people to freedom. But…it couldn't be…"

"Oh, yeah?" Now Garfield was miffed. It was bad enough to be trapped in a future run by Odies, and with no lasagna, but to be lectured by one of Nermel's descendents… "Hey, I'm not such a slouch. I'll have you know I've outwitted people a lot dumber than me in my day." That didn't come out right, but it didn't matter. "You just watch, pal. I'll get us out of here, free the other cats, and find a way back to my own time all in the same day. By the way, how many cats are we talking about here, anyway?"

"Tens of thousands," the other cat said. "Perhaps even more. All laboring in meat plants, making cans of dog food for our masters. I managed to escape such a place at a young age, and learned the truth about our past in the ruins of a city I found in the forest. I studied the records there for many years before I was caught foraging for food."

When the cat said "Thousands," that gave Garfield pause, but only temporarily. No cat deserved to be making dog food for the rest of their lives. And besides, the ruins his cellmate mentioned might have a way of getting him home…

"Ok, you got yourself a deal," Garfield said. "I'll help us break outta here, we'll go free your friends, and then hopefully it's back to my own time and a double helping of lasagna for me. Deal?"

The other cat nodded. "Deal," he said.

Getting out of the "Jail" actually proved easier than either of them thought. The locks were fairly simple to pick (Garfield having "Some experience" in that area, as he told his new friend) and then they just had to sneak past the Odie clones who were supposed to be guarding them, but were sleeping instead. "As I said…they are not all that bright," the cat whispered as they crept past.

They were able to make their getaway on a pair of pint-sized ponies that the Odies apparently used for transportation. I guess it was a little too much to hope for a bus ride, Garfield thought. He'd had some experience riding horses on the farm that Jon's parents owned, so it wasn't too bad. By daybreak, they were well away from the dog city and were approaching a massive structure that had been carved out of some nearby mountains.

"Well, that doesn't look too friendly," Garfield commented. He wrinkled his nose. "Stinks, too."

"It is a place of misery and degradation, where those who enter have little hope of returning alive," the cat intoned.

"Oh, you mean like the DMV?" Garfield quipped.

"If there is any chance of freeing our kind, it will be during the lunch hour," the cat replied, ignoring Garfield's witticism. "That is one of the few times they are allowed any sort of rest and they will all be together. Fortunately, it is not heavily guarded, since the Odies in their arrogance believe the slaves to be worn into submission. But if they see you, they will rise up-I know it."

"You know, I could get to like this hero stuff," Garfield said. "Lead on, descendent of the cat that usually annoys me."

They were able to go around to one of the side walls of the factory, where the cat pointed to narrow windows at the top. He withdrew a pair of ropes that he'd apparently had hidden in his saddlebags.

"You've gotta be kidding," Garfield said, but he gritted his teeth and began pulling himself and the other cat up. "I gotta lose some weight when I get back to my own time," he muttered. Eventually, they made their way to the window, where Garfield looked in and saw an appalling sight.

There were thousands of cats in there; all crammed together, drinking from small bowls of milk and eating scraps of cat food that his companion explained was their only nourishment. "This is gross," Garfield exclaimed. "It's worse than a high-school cafeteria!"

"It is all that many of them have known-but they yearn for freedom as I did," the other cat said. "Are you ready to say what we rehearsed earlier?"

"Yeah, I got it. Improvisation is actually one of my specialties," Garfield replied, remembering the many times he'd had stuff thrown at him for "Singing" on the back fence.

Garfield stood on the windowsill and took a deep breath as he whistled to get the cats' attention.

It worked. They stopped what they were doing and stared up at him. Now I know how Barack Obama felt during the campaign, Garfield thought. This is pretty cool. "My fellow felines!" he said, using his deep singing voice. "You don't know me, but you may have heard of me. I am…the Orange One, and I have come to lead you to your freedom!" Eat your heart out, Mel Gibson, he thought.

"The Orange One," a murmur started coming from the crowd. "The Orange One has come! The prophecy has come to pass!"

Feeling more confident, Garfield continued: "You guys have been making food for your masters long enough! It's time to stand on your own four feet and tell them what they can do with it! Are you guys with me?"

This time the entire crowd erupted in cheers as they threw down their bowls and surged towards the large wooden doors that had kept them inside. His friend had been right, Garfield realized-this place was hardly even guarded. The mass of cats easily broke the doors open as they poured forth into daylight, some of them for the first time in their lives.

The procession of cats followed Garfield and his companion as they marched off to the forest. "What about the Odies?" Garfield asked. "Won't they come after us?"

"Once they see that the cats are gone, they will try to make dog food themselves," the cat replied. "They will be more concerned about eating than chasing after their former slaves. As I said…"

"They're not too bright, I know." Garfield smiled. "That's one thing they have in common with most of the dogs of my time."

For the next two days they travelled through the forest, until they reached its edge and saw a mass of ruins coming up out of the ground.

"The Forbidden City," the cat explained. "Long considered a taboo by my people. It was here that I learned how cats and dogs had once been pets. Come…there is something here I wish to show you."

While the other cats made camp, Garfield and his friend made their way into the ruins. The other cat led him through a series of tunnels until they came to what looked like…a cardboard box with crude drawings on it.

"What the heck is this?" Garfield said.

"No one really knows," the cat replied. "It is said that long ago a human boy and his companion-a tiger he called Hobbes-came here in it from the distant past. For some reason, the boy called himself Spaceman Spiff, but I have long suspected that was not his real name. They taught my people much before they were enslaved by the Odies, and then apparently returned to their own time in another box, leaving this one behind as a memento."

"Wait a minute," Garfield said. "You're telling me they made a time machine…out of a cardboard box? How is this thing supposed to work?"

"Apparently it works by imagination. There is a dimension of thought which can only be accessed in times of extreme duress, during which one can apparently accomplish wondrous, even magical, things." The cat shrugged. "I know it sounds like madness. But the box has been here all this time, waiting for the right person to come along and use it."

"You're right-it sounds nuts." Garfield looked at the box. "On the other hand, so does a world run by Odies. Okay, I'll give a shot. Thanks…and good luck with the freedom thing. I think you guys will be good at it."

"Farewell," the other cat said. "Perhaps you can warn the cats of your own time of what is to come…good luck!"

Garfield climbed inside the box and looked at the "Controls." There was a button, drawn and filled in with crayon, that read "Return." It couldn't really be that simple, he thought. Even so, Garfield closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and touched it.

For a moment, Garfield felt like he was falling. "Look out below!" he called out, as the box tumbled end over end before landing with a thud on carpeting.

"Oof!" Garfield staggered out from underneath the box. "Any landing you can waddle away from is a good one, I always say," he commented. He looked around. He was inside his closet. The door had opened, and he could see Odie shaking his head; apparently the door had banged into him when he landed. Serves you right, Garfield thought.

"Garfield?" He heard the welcome sound of Jon's voice coming from the living room. "Is that you? What are you doing in there? You're not bothering Odie again, are you?"

"Jon! You're not gonna believe where I've jut been! Garfield bounded into the living room, happy to be home. "By the way…you got any lasagna? I'm starving."

Jon sighed. "Garfield, don't you ever think of anything else besides food?" But he got up to get some from the freezer anyway.

Garfield sighed with contentment. He saw that Odie had climbed onto the kitchen counter, no doubt expecting his share. Garfield sauntered up behind him and gave him a nudge, listening with satisfaction as Odie slid off and crashed onto the floor below.

It was good to be home.

THE END


End file.
